No One Went Harder Than This Infamous Helicopter-Hijacking Bank Robber

“He could have been working for a bank instead of robbing one—very, very clever guy,” one teacher said of him.

6 months ago

A recent Vice article dives into one of the most brazen bank robbers in Canadian history, and the ride is a wild one.

In 1979, a man named Rory Shayne hijacked a helicopter in Montreal with his girlfriend Micheline-Rachel Dubiel, adorned it with fake Police lettering, and ordered its pilot to fly them to a Royal Bank where they stole more than $12,000.

Rory Shayne (Mugshot)

That was just the beginning of a years-long romp that took Shayne in and out of prisons, including one he escaped from, all the way to a courtroom where he pulled a gun out of what experts believe was his rectum. He used it to threaten the life of presiding judge Paul Martineau, who ran from the room, and then his lawyer, Gary Martin, lamenting that he would not return to prison.

“I said, ‘What are you going to do now, shoot your lawyer?’” Martin told Vice. “I was being a bit sarcastic, but I was trying to negotiate for a woman hiding under a desk to walk out of the room. That was my main concern.”

But he wasn’t bluffing, despite the fact that Martin was sure he was. After misfiring twice — which is extremely rare —guards jumped him.

“Maybe it was a Vaseline overload,” Martin told Vice, laughing. “Usually, a gun misfires because of humidity. Bullets have detonator caps and when the cap is punched, that’s what detonates the powder in the shell and the casing itself. That’s what probably happen, if it did come from his butt. That’s probably the cause of my lucky misfires.”

The story, somehow, doesn’t end there. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison for attempting to kill Judge Martineau, and was deported to Germany. But once he gets there, the trail runs cold. Is he dead? Did he escape? No one really knows, according to Vice.

“Some people told me he passed away,” Martin told Vice. “It’s a bit like the guy who jumped out of the plane with the money in the States. When you don’t know what’s happened to people, there is always mystery attached. Nobody knows what happened.”